Kaitlin asked me the other day when we were out in the paddock, chasing around the pigs with a camera if I would have guessed 10 years ago that Brian and I would be doing life like this. I knew what she meant. “Yes,” came out quickly – my mouth opening before my brain even processed the question. While we moved here to have a simpler life, that doesn’t mean it’s gotten “easy,” just less (in a good way), but adding animals complicated our lives in the best of ways. It’s such a different life than we had 4-10 years ago in LA (after 10 years in New York). I have become increasingly aware of my identity contradiction even if it makes sense to me. Most days I live in workout clothes or gross farm clothes, unkept from the Zoom-shoulder down, with mud stains on the back of my calves from the pig’s snouts (a telltale sign you have a pig). Then come Thursday, I’m ON. I get my hair and makeup done for back-to-back campaign shoots and multiple blog posts in cute clothes. It’s not a “performance” because it is a version of me, but it’s a stark contrast to the day before or the day after. Most people aren’t just one thing and I feel like most of us could happily lead multiple types of lives.
Maybe in 20 years, I’ll write about how this search for simplicity while actively on social media (a toxic cesspool if you aren’t careful) was never going to work, that the two are intrinsically at war and fated to fail. Or maybe (and this is my hope), this pseudo-countrified suburban mini-farm-life that we chased and now have was/is, in fact, the only way that I can sustain this career (which I love) and family (which I love more) while staying mentally healthy. It forces my feet firmly on the muddy ground, tethering us to our home and each other (currently in the best of ways). It’s more work but not stress if that makes any sense. But y’all, I love the simplicity and also the challenges of this pseudo-suburban farm life so much (right now at least) and feel really really grateful to be raising our kids here.
Ok, Thanks For The Existential Update Now Show Us Those Piggies!!!
YOU GUYS. You’d think I would have shifted into full pigfluencer when we got Barb and Elisha but for whatever reason (rain and other shoot priorities) we didn’t shoot them properly until this month. So I’d like to officially introduce you to Barb (white with black markings) and Elisha (black with white markings). We adopted them in July as little bitty piglets, picked them up in August once they were weaned, and chose them because of how affectionate and funny they were even as piglets. They are Kune Kune pigs (which means fatty, fatty we are told) and are now 7 months old and at least 200 lbs of hilarity. LOOK AT THEIR FACES!!!!!!!! Those cute little flat noses! And they are 100% just pets (we are not raising them to be bred, but honestly if one of them got knocked up I’d be PSYCHED).
Can you believe that was only 7 months ago???? They have honestly brought so much joy into our lives because they are so cute, affectionate, and HILARIOUS. They are always ravenously starving, truly only caring about food all day, every day. They run so fast when we are coming because they hope to be fed and then knock each other over getting to the food. They fight, snort, squeal and we just laugh and laugh and laugh. The kids LOVE them in every way and look forward to feeding them (I swear, right now I’m on the flight home from spring break and they can’t stop talking about how much they miss the pigs).
How Do You Take Care Of Them? Are They A Lot Of Work?
Brian and the kids get almost full credit for the real work. We researched and asked a lot of questions before we adopted pigs – we knew that they would be work, but we also felt confident that the work wouldn’t be too annoying or more accurately, worth it because the love would be there. We don’t have any regular farm help (we have someone who is helping weed right now, but no crew of yard folk yet). Brian and the kids do all things animal.
How Do You Feed Them?
They have to be fed twice a day – morning and night, but the timing is pretty flexible (because they can always graze outside). They eat pig food from the farm store and the best part is leftovers from our fridge (not meat) and then any and all greens they can get their snouts on. Every Sunday I clean out our fridge of about-to-be-too-old veggies and fruit and it’s a real win/win for everyone (essentially what you can compost).
The kids do 80% of the work, yes, even before school. It was not easy or awesome during the winter when it was dark until almost 8 am so they were out there with headlamps and huge coats. I was extremely proud of them. They honestly rarely complained because they really like seeing the piggies, but specifically in the winter we would let them off the hook because gearing up and finding the flashlights would take too long (yes, we need landscape lighting, still).
What About The POOP?
No need to show you photos, but if you’ve ever had a large dog, times the size by 2. It’s constant, huge and unlike dogs, they have no discretion on where they dump. Like they just walk and dump. Eat and Dump. Drink and Dump. We are fine with poop (remember I was a professional dog walker in NYC) but this is next level. Brian spends 2-3 hours most sunny Sundays (or whatever the dryest day is) shoveling it all. If he doesn’t then all the animals (and kids) walk in it all day in the paddock and it mixes with the mud and becomes total poop/mud sludge.
There’s Big Barb – she’s very assertive and knows what she wants and how to get it (by knocking aside anyone in her way).
Elisha is a bit less aggressive and more affectionate. Brian calls her his girlfriend and she will sit for food and let him pet her behind her ears for a long time. Brian and the kids spend more time in here than I do (per our original agreement) not because I don’t want to but because life responsibilities have to be divvied up and I couldn’t take on the role of being in charge of these two.
How Are The Alpacas? Any Drawbacks To Having Only Boys?
This photo is from June when we adopted these boys. They were newly sheared and now have MUCH longer fur as you can see below. They are easy, awkward, skittish and like the pigs, make us laugh a lot. The only negative is that we adopted three boys (which we knew) and let’s just say they take the gender stereotypes to the extreme. A lot of establishing dominance, alpha stuff and let’s just say they don’t ask for consent, even from each other. It was kinda odd/funny at first, but then we would find Milo (our favorite and the smallest) underneath both of the other two, and Birdie and I were NOT OK WITH IT. I would spray them with a hose to break it up and both of us were crying and screaming for them to get off of him. Again, they told us this would happen (this is why male alpacas can’t be with female alpacas, they are not very smart, and yet their male desires are unquenchable so they will even mount their mom or sisters… yes, ewwww). So we hired a guy to come out and castrate them (which took 5 minutes) and it’s been MUCH better since September.
They have warmed up to us all so much, coming to Brian and yes, Bert even gives him kisses. They love the kids (because they are shorter), but are still scared of most adults if they don’t know them.
Are The Pigs And Alpacas Friends?
YOU bet. But not at first. When the piggies were little they were fast and they scared the alpacas (which was very funny to watch). But now they all get along, cuddle in the barn at night and graze together. It’s very wonderful to watch them all be a little family.
Admittedly we are not winning any 4-H awards with these 5 – it’s a funny farm y’all and they are often covered in mud and hay (like always). The paddock is gross, full of plastic pools and an old cast iron tub that six dudes can’t move. The animals eat the grass before it grows so we might need to start rotating them… Oh, and we are going to shear the alpacas this spring (maybe watch YouTube videos, maybe hire someone to teach us this year so we can do it ourselves next year?). And I guess we need to start cutting one of their teeth that grows to a dangerous length? That sounds like a Brian problem…
All in all, it’s going very well (THANK GOD) and we made it through our first dark winter. I was nervous that we were biting off more than we could chew and while I was pretty clear that they weren’t my responsibility (because I’m full up), I still wondered/feared that they would become my problem. But not at all (obviously this is due to Brian coaching the kids to help and him having a lot of flexibility). These 5 animals (7 with the pups) are absolutely enriching our day-to-day here and are responsible for making us laugh a lot. Having to prioritize other living beings, of course, adds work but similar to kids (but not, ha) it’s also strangely fulfilling.
But to be clear, Brian still wants miniature goats and I’m still very interested in chickens for the fresh eggs (shout out to a reader Marlee in SW Portland who convinced me to reconsider chickens). Part of me thinks we should stop while we are ahead but Brian keeps making a case for having more… And what is the difference between having 6 or 7 kids? Not much! We really love the lifestyle and while of course it limits us and adds work, we are thankful to feel tethered to our home and hang out with the kids and this crew on the weekends. I think this is middle age, y’all, and we are here for it.
*Photos by Kaitlin Green
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
